Snow Castle-Mania
by Fegerrific
Summary: A winter wonderland awaits Scooby and the gang when they enter a snow castle contest! But as Scooby and Shaggy's food-based citadel begins to take form, the rest of the gang must be on their guard as whispers of a snow monster circulate. But snow monsters are just legends…aren't they?
1. Castle Competition

"Rellllpppp!" Scooby howled, snowboarding recklessly down a hill of new-fallen snow with a glowing creature on his tail! The massive beast, as wide as it was tall, lumbered quickly down the hill after the Great Dane.

But as Scooby crossed the finish line, the glowing monster received the shock of his life as it was suddenly covered with piles of snow from cleverly-concealed snow machines.

"Hey! Get me out of here!" the monster shouted desperately in a voice that sounded more human than hellish.

As a crowd gathered around the scene, Mystery Incorporated dug the glowing monster out from the snow pile and Velma yanked off its mask. "Chase von Winter?!" the assembled group chorused.

"Yeah, you caught me," Chase sighed. "I couldn't risk losing the race and my family's honor in the process."

"So you became the glowing monster to scare everyone away from the competition," Fred explained.

"And I would have won, too," Chase scowled. "If it weren't for you meddling kids!" The owner of the ski resort, Victor von Winter, a black-haired man with a large nose, ambled onto the scene. "Dad!?" Chase exclaimed. "This isn't what it looks like!"

Victor surveyed his costumed son with fire in his eyes. "Son, because of this stunt, you're grounded for a month. And no snowboarding, either." Chase tried to protest, but his dad's tone left no room for arguments.

Meekly, Chase extricated himself from the pile of snow and scampered off to his room. Victor watched him go before turning to Mystery Incorporated. "Thank you for your help, kids," he said with a grin before turning back to the assembled crowd. "The von Winter snowboarding competition is back on!" he announced to cheers, whoops and hollers.

After the contest, Mystery Incorporated headed towards home. With the heater on full-blast, the Mystery Machine bounded down the freshly-plowed road away from the von Winter ski resort. "So, like, what are you going to do with that huge snowboarding trophy?" Shaggy asked Scooby in the backseat.

Scooby thought for a moment. "Rell it. Ruy rhookies," he barked happily before sticking his head out the window in an attempt to catch a snowflake or two.

"Hey, gang, look at this," Velma exclaimed, flicking absently through the newspaper. "It's an ad for a snow-castle building competition nearby."

"That might be fun," Daphne remarked. "Is it close by?"

Velma examined the ad carefully. "Ah, here it is. It's at the Hotel Nieve," She replied, quickly rattling off the address for Fred's benefit.

"We're barely an hour out, then," Fred replied, flicking on his turn signal and skidding down an exit ramp.

"Well, this'll be nice," Shaggy replied. "I mean, whoever heard of a snow-castle-monster?"

"Rot rhe," Scooby barked excitedly.

Shaggy pulled out a pad of paper and pencil (Usually used for shopping lists) and, with Scooby's help, began to sketch out his snow castle.


	2. Castle Creation

"Hmmm…I think the french fry turrets should be to the left of the ice cream colonnade," Shaggy told Scooby as the Mystery Machine screeched to a halt in front of the Hotel Nieve. "And the pizza parapet should be nearer to the back."

"We're here!" Fred announced, putting the van in park and snapping on a pair of earmuffs.

On the hotel's front lawn, a half-dozen people were hard at work sculpting multi-storied palaces and replicas of famous buildings. One woman piled snow onto the top dome of the Kremlin, while a man nearby added another column to his Coliseum.

A tall woman, her dark hair tied back in a ponytail, approached the gang. "I'm Joanne Scott, the owner of Hotel Nieve. Would you like to enter the competition, or are you just here as spectators?"

"Enter, if it's not too late," Velma replied.

Joanne laughed, her voice like crystal bells in the cool air. "Wonderful. If you could fill out this form…" She shoved a clipboard into Velma's hands, who started scribbling down information. "I know it's called a snow 'castle' contest, but pretty much anything goes," continued Joanne. "We've been having the competition on these grounds for years, but I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to."

"Able to what?" Velma asked.

"Host the competition," Joanne explained, shrugging her red coat closer to her body. "Especially after the fiasco last night. Someone…or something…smashed up almost all the snow castles!"

"Like, zoinks!" Shaggy gasped, leaping into Scooby's arms and shivering in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.

"But I'm sure that nothing else will happen," Joanne replied quickly, as though trying to convince herself instead of Mystery Incorporated. She showed them towards their assigned space where they were to build their castle.

"Okay, Scoob, let's get started," Shaggy exclaimed, flicking open his pad of paper. "We're going to need a good foundation for the licorice drawbridge...and we can't skimp on the soda pop towers!"

Scooby quickly got to work, digging up mounds of snow with his gloved paws. As quickly as Scooby dug it, Shaggy deftly shaped it into a reasonable facsimile of a castle.

Soon, ice-cream-cone-shaped towers began to form from the snowdrifts, quickly followed by a tall spire fashioned to look like a bottle of soda. "Wow, you guys are really into this, huh?" Fred asked, surveying their handiwork proudly.

"Like, this is fun," Shaggy replied, patting another handful of snow onto the ice cream cone. "Especially, like, the whole 'no-monsters' part."

"Roo rhaid it!" Scooby barked as he used his tail to carve out the cherry on top.

"Well, we'll leave you two be," Velma said. "I want to see what everyone is working on."

After a full day of castle-building, Shaggy and Scooby had managed to carve out about half of their castle. "We still have to, like, dig out the hot-fudge moat,"

"Rand rha rhamburgers!" Scooby added.

"Right, Scoob," Shaggy replied, scratching his friend gently behind the ears. "But for now, let's, like, hit the hay."


	3. Castle Conundrum

The next day, Mystery Incorporated was awoken by Shaggy's mournful cry. "NOOOOOOO!" he shouted helplessly at the sky. Scooby joined him with a sorrowful howl.

"What in the world?!" Velma exclaimed, jogging out the meet the duo.

"Like, someone smashed our castle!" Shaggy exclaimed.

"Mine, too!" "What gives!?" "I spent two days on this!" The other contestants' complaints mingled together as everyone tried to make sense of what happened.

Joanne tried to allay everyone's fears, but nothing mitigated the fact that most of the contestants had to start all over again.

While Scooby and Shaggy began their castle again, Fred, Velma and Daphne headed off to see what clues they could find.

"There's something very fishy going on here," Velma said. "Did you notice that only some of the castles had been knocked down?"

"I sure did," Fred replied. "I think there's more to this competition than meets the eye."

"Let's take a look around," Daphne replied. "I think we can get to the bottom of this…"

Fred, Velma and Daphne approached one of the contestants, a sandy-haired man in a black coat and boots, working hard on a snow version of the Taj Mahal. "Wow," Velma exclaimed. "It looks like you've got a great sculpture."

"Yeah, yeah, this is only my third time building the dang thing!" he scowled. "That ol' snow monster's going to the death of me if it keeps knockin' down my buildings!"

"Have you seen the snow monster, Mr…uh…?" Fred asked, suddenly realizing he hadn't learned the contestant's name.

"Winter, Sam Winter," the man replied, offering his snowy gloved hand to shake.

"…that's fitting…" Fred murmured.

"And no…no I haven't, actually. I've just heard the others talking, plus, y'know, all the legends about the yeti and all that sort of thing…"

"Okay, well, we'll let you get back to your work," Velma said as she, Fred and Daphne ambled away.

By Shaggy and Scooby, Joanne circulated through the contestants, offering words of encouragement to ease the pain of starting from scratch. "Wow, this looks good," she said, surveying Shaggy and Scooby's food-based castle.

"Rhank rou," Scooby barked, sculpting out the details of the hamburger-shaped parapet.

"We're, like, getting really close," Shaggy replied, rolling out a clump of snow to make sesame seeds for the bun. "We just need to finish up the pizza pie parapet and the french fry drawbridge."

"Well, don't let me stop you," Joanne replied, striding away to check out the next castle.

"Like, it's not you I'm worried about," Shaggy murmured.

After interrogating a few more of the contestants, the trio made their way into the woods by the hotel, to discuss their findings. "Jinkies, what's this?" Velma exclaimed, plucking a small scrap of fur from a low-slung tree branch.

"It's fur," Fred announced.

Velma rolled the scrap between her fingers. "Fake fur, no less," she replied. "I think I have a good idea what's been going on here, but we should probably catch that snow monster to be sure."


	4. Castle Creature

Exhausted, Shaggy and Scooby put the finishing touches onto their castle and headed inside the hotel, where Fred, Velma and Daphne were waiting for them. Fred tied a scarf around his neck while Velma and Daphne pulled on hats and mittens.

"Hey, like, what's up with you guys?" Shaggy asked.

"We're going to catch that snow monster tonight," Velma replied.

"Since it seems like the monster only attacks at night, we're hide out in the woods and catch it tonight!" Fred exclaimed.

"Like, you do that, Fred," Shaggy replied. He faked a massive yawn, complete with overdone stretching. "Like, Scoob and I need our sleep to finish off our castle tomorrow."

"If you don't help us, there might not even BE a castle tomorrow," Velma countered, playing her trump card. Reluctantly, Scooby and Shaggy agreed.

As the sun began to sink over the horizon, Mystery Incorporated began to suit up for their monster-hunting expedition.

"Jeepers, what's this?" Daphne asked, curling her lip at the shapeless white jumpsuit Fred offered her. Puffy lobs of blue and grey paint haphazardly dotted the surface of the jumpsuit like puddles of stagnant water.

"It's our camouflage!" he exclaimed excitedly. "In the snow, no one will see us coming! It's genius!"

"If you say so…" Daphne murmured, taking the suit with two fingers to show her disgust, but she put it on anyway.

"So, like, what are we going to do when the monster shows up?" Shaggy asked as Mystery Incorporated crept alongside the contest area. The snow castles, now dark and sinister, cast eerie shadows in the pale moonlight.

"Leave that to me," Fred replied. "Just do what you do best."

"We do what we do best when we have Scooby Snacks," Shaggy retorted. Scooby opened his mouth and pointed insistently inside as if to say, 'Feed me!'

Suddenly, the wind picked up, causing a small snowdrift to cover Shaggy and Scooby with a mound of snow. "Like, zoinks!" Shaggy screeched.

"Ronster! Ronster!" Scooby howled.

"That's no monster," Fred scolded, digging the dog-and-detective duo out of their predicament.

"No, but that is!" Velma exclaimed, pointing.

The monster, a massive ape-like beast covered in white fur, raised its arms and growled threateningly at the gang. With a bone-chilling roar, the beast made its way towards them, stomping angrily through snow castles as it came.

"C'mon, gang!" Fred commanded, dashing behind a nearby snowdrift. The rest of Mystery Incorporated followed suit, as did the monster! But as the beast drew near, Fred shouted, "NOW!" and Mystery Incorporated let loose with a massive barrage of snowballs.

Driven back by the onslaught, the monster stumbled helplessly over one of the snow castles and tumbled heavily backwards into the icy building. "Help! I'm stuck!" the creature cried in a decidedly human voice.

Mystery Incorporated helped the creature out of the snow castle and tied its hands behind its back. "Time to see who you really are," Fred announced, reaching for the monster's mask.


	5. Castle Conclusion

"It's Sam Winter, of course," Velma exclaimed. "Not only did you know about the snow monster before anyone else, you also left this scrap of fake fur at the crime scene!"

"All right!" Sam snarled. "I wanted to win the competition, but I thought all the other castles were so much better than mine! So I tried to ruin them all so I would win!"

Joanne, attracted by the commotion, jogged out to see what was going on. She arrived just in time to hear Sam's confession. "Well, not only will you be disqualified, you will also be talking to the police about what you did." She held up her cell phone triumphantly. "They're on their way right now."

Indeed, from far away, a police siren began to wail. "Meddling kids!" Sam grumbled. "Stupid dog!"

With Sam safely behind bars, the snow castle contest could continue in earnest, and the judging was only minutes away.

"Jinkies!" Velma exclaimed, surveying Shaggy and Scooby's massive food-themed snow castle. A drawbridge shaped like licorice vines made a pathway over the 'chocolate fudge' moat. Turrets shaped like ice cream cones and soda bottles stretched up to the heavens; walls like boxes of fast-food fries formed turrets and parapets. On the balcony (shaped like a pizza, of course), King and Queen Gingerbread waved to their loyal snow subjects below.

"You're going to win first prize for sure!" Daphne replied.

Shaggy smacked his lips. "Like, if only we can keep from eating it long enough for it to be judged."

As the contestants finished their castles, Joanne announced the ending of the castle contest.

"Like, here it is, Scoob," Shaggy gasped as a team of judges combed through the area, making notes on pads of paper and conversing in low voices. "The moment of truth."

"We have a winner!" one judge shouted, pointing directly at Shaggy and Scooby's castle. "An absurdist combination of defensive strategy and incredible edibles, this snow castle is the first prize winner!"

As Mystery Incorporated cheered, Scooby and Shaggy accepted the gold first-prize trophy from Joanne. Scooby held it up victoriously with a happy, "Scooby-Dooby-DOO!"


End file.
